It is well known that chronic alcohol abuse results in impairment of psychological functioning that may appear as measurable deficits in a variety of behavioral dimensions. The proposed project will examine the recoverability of these behavioral deficits over time, in relation to subjects' age and history of alcohol ingestion. These relationships will be investigated by temporally spaced administrations of an assessment battery that includes standard neuropsychological tests and other measures designed to evaluate subjects' overall behavioral functioning and capabilities for new learning. Performance on these tasks will be related to each subject's life and drinking history. Assessment will be carried out via an experimental design which controls for potential confounding effects, especially those due to repeated administration of the assessment battery. From these results, information will be furnished on recoverability of behavioral deficits due to chronic alcohol ingestion, impact of age and drinking history on this recoverability, and the specific time course for recovery of particular functions. This information will be related to treatment planning so that therapies and training programs which require new learning are introduced at appropriate stages of detoxification. Some direct tests of subjects' ability to learn and change by means of recently developed behavioral treatment techniques will be conducted at different stages of psychological recovery from alcohol abuse. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Goldman, M.S., Whitman, R. D., Rosenbaum, G. and VandeVusse, D. Recoverability of sensory and motor functioning following chronic alcohol abuse. In F. A. Seixas, M.D. (Ed.), Currents in Alcoholism. Vol. III. New York: Grune and Stratton, Inc., 1977, in press.